


Adventures at Shady Acres Care Home

by Maker_of_Rune_Vests



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Mention of Death of Family Member, New York, POV Third Person, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Pre-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, The original female character is ninety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maker_of_Rune_Vests/pseuds/Maker_of_Rune_Vests
Summary: A little old Irish-American lady meets Loki twice and Odin once and is oblivious.





	Adventures at Shady Acres Care Home

May 2012

Mary Cecelia McGarry was ninety, and needed a walker to move more than a few yards. But that wasn’t at all likely to make her follow the rules. Indeed, when a rather nervous nurse announced that less than a mile from Shady Acres Care Home there was some sort of disturbance and all residents were to remain inside, she decided to take a constitutional.  
Deaf to the explosions on television, deaf to her juniors speaking of aliens, she slowly walked through the brown-carpeted halls, past the wooden doors and the landscape art. Her small feet, shod in soft leather walkers that fastened with velcro, snuck her into the kitchen. All the staff there were watching a television. One of them was crying and another was hugging her.  
Probably the finale of a soap opera. They did not notice her, even when she accidentally ran her walker into a cupboard, even when she took five minutes to maneuver herself around her walker to open the door and then get herself out of it.  
The day was a pleasant, sunny one, and she slowly walked down the sidewalk, enjoying the sun warming her through her knit pants and her hand-made sweater. Behind her, something exploded in the sky, making her white curls look like fiber optics. But she was hunched, and did not notice.  
She turned a corner and noticed somebody leaning against a wall in a shadowy alley. It made her stop and look at him, that and his peculiar clothes. Mary Cecelia was used to kids these days and their subcultures, but wearing nothing but leather in May was downright ridiculous. No wonder the young man looked as white as a sheet.  
As she stopped, leaning on her pink walker, he straightened up with an instancy she wished she had and took a step towards her.  
“What are you doing?” Apparently British. And rather rude. Kids these days. “You shouldn’t be outside, mortal.”  
Mary Cecelia’s blue eyes shot sparks. “Young man, that is no way to speak to your elder! I’m old enough to be your great-grandmother.”  
Unexpectedly, the corner of the young man’s mouth lifted. “Impossible.”  
Mary Cecelia smiled. Blarney like her Hugh had had, God rest his soul. “And you certainly aren’t dressed for May. You’re going to have a fainting fit, sure, and won’t that impress the girls?” She bent and pulled a water bottle out of the little bag that hung from her walker. “Now you drink this, and then go change into something made of cotton.”  
He stared at the water bottle as if it were a snake, and then looked at her sharply. “Why are you succoring me? Have you really no conception of your surroundings?”  
“I‘m glad to say I don’t.” Mary Cecelia held the bottle higher, under his nose, until he took it in a bony hand. “I never watch the news. Now drink your water, and then walk me home. My bad knees are acting up.”  
She bent to rub them, and was pleased when she straightened to see that he had drunk the water. “Come along, now.”  
He strode along beside her, at a pace that made her complain after turning the corner, “I’m not as fast as I was when I was twenty!”  
He was looking at the sky, and said without looking at her, “You need to be inside. This city is imperiled.”  
Mary Cecilia huffed. “My Hugh was a policeman, God rest his soul, and there was a month and a day in which not a day went by without his arresting someone, and yet they say the crime rate was nothing then! I’m telling you, it was awful. But then, there’s nothing new under the sun, now is there?”  
“Or elsewhere,” the young man said, brushing greasy hair out of his face. “Is that your residence?” He pointed to the care home.  
“Indeed and it is,” Mary Cecelia said. He stepped forward and opened the front gate, and then followed her to the door.  
Natalee opened the door after a moment. “Now Mrs. McGarry, we told you—“ Her eyes went past Mary Cecelia, and she screamed.  
Mary Cecelia turned to see what the young man was doing, but he wasn’t there.  
“The—the alien—“ Natalee stammered.  
“Nonsense!” Mary Cecelia said. “He was a very nice young man with very bad taste. Now I’d like some coffee, dear.”

November 2013 

Mary Cecelia McGarry was ninety-one, sitting in her wheelchair knitting a sweater in the warm common room of Shady Acres, mumbling the stitch counts for basket-weave, when the young man she’d met the year before entered the room with Janet and an old man clad in a woolen suit. The young man was wearing a suit too, a black one. She impaled her ball of acrylic yarn with her knitting needles and wheeled herself to them. “Do you remember me, dear?”  
He smiled at her, very charmingly. “Of course. But I believe I failed to learn your name.”  
“Mary Cecelia McGarry,” she announced, holding out her shaky hand. “And yours?”  
“Locke,” he said, taking it for a moment. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He turned to the old man, lightly tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention away from Mrs. Paderewski’s Chihuahua Bogna. “Father, this is a friend of mine….”  
The old man turned slowly toward her, and blinked at her with one blue eye. The other was covered by an eyepatch.  
“I’m Mary Cecelia,” she said, holding out her hand. He mumbled something that sounded like “Odie”—she’d met an Odie, once—took her hand, and kissed it.  
She giggled, taking her hand away and trying to knit again, dropping a stitch. “Well, I never! You’d better not be a wedded man, sir.”  
He looked foggier, and rubbed his head a little too hard. Locke put his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t try to remember, Father,” he said slowly and clearly, and then, “Go greet that little…dog.”  
Odie smiled and slowly walked over to Bogna.  
“He was widowed quite recently,” Locke said in a low voice. His eyes drifted away from Mary Cecelia. “Only a few days ago. He does not remember, and should never be reminded.”  
“I’m sorry for your loss, dear,” Mary Cecelia said sympathetically. “I’ll pray for your mother’s soul. May I know her name?”  
Locke looked down at her, lines between his brows, scratching his palm. “Frigga,” he said after a long moment, and then took a step back. He looked at Odie, who was very seriously patting the Chihuahua’s head, and then back at Mary Cecelia. “Thank you,” he said, and turned and walked out of the room.  
When Bogna fell asleep, Odie stood up and looked around befuddledly.  
“Locke left,” Mary Cecelia said. “I suppose he didn’t want an emotional scene.”  
“Locke?” Odie said.  
“Your son.”  
Odie shook his head. “I do not remember having a son….”  
She sighed. “Come here, dear, and let me see if this sweater I’m making will fit you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to http://archiveofourown.org/users/Elly_Hiddlesherloki/profile for letting me plot this at her, being the first person to read it, and helping me think of a title!


End file.
